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US energy department research links megablazes in the west to hail, deluges and risk of flash floods in central statesImages showing thick clouds of wildfire smoke drifting thousands of miles away have become commonplace in the US in recent years as the country’s western states battle megablazes with increasing frequency. But a new study from US Department of Energy suggests the harmful impact of those behemoth blazes may extend much further.The new study, published by the department’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, for the first time links extreme hail, dangerous deluges, and the growing risk of flash floods in states like Colorado, Wyoming, Oklahoma and Nebraska to the growing intensity of wildfires in the west. Continue reading...

The man, speaking into the phone, accuses the man he is holding of stealing a bicycle out of a friend’s yardMilwaukee police say they are investigating a viral social media video depicting a white man with one of his hands around the neck of a frightened Black man while calling 911 about a neighbor’s stolen bicycle.A police spokesperson on Monday said officers know the 62-year-old white man’s identity but didn’t release his name, saying the investigation into the case was ongoing and that its findings would be forwarded to state prosecutors for review of potential charges. Continue reading...

Documents released by congressional committee appear to show ex-president profiting from security detail in and out of officeThe US Secret Service was made to pay as much as $1,185 a night to stay at properties belonging to former president Donald Trump, a congressional committee said on Monday as it released documents that appeared to show the former president profiting from his protection details in and out of office.All told, the Secret Service, which is mandated by law to protect the president and his family, spent $1.4m at Trump-owned properties in the US, according to records obtained by the Democratic-led House oversight committee as part of its investigation into Trump conflicts of interest. Continue reading...

Midterm elections will decide contested rematch between Stacey Abrams and Brian Kemp and which party controls the US SenateToday marks the first day of early voting in Georgia, the first major election for the critical state since the signing of the controversial Election Integrity Act, which brought forth new voting restrictions. Within the first few hours of the start of the election day, there were reports of disruption in service from polling places throughout the state, and later in the day voters at some stations saw two-hour lines.Still, voters and election officials remain optimistic about the midterm elections, which will decide the strongly contested rematch between gubernatorial candidates Stacey Abrams and Brian Kemp, and which party controls the United States Senate with the election between Senator Raphael Warnock and controversial figure Herschel Walker. Continue reading...

Librium Liz appeared for a brief, silent cameo in the Commons as her captors, Jeremy Hunt and Penny Mordaunt, held courtIt was a very British coup. So polite that you could almost have missed it. So restrained that Liz Truss actually had to mastermind her own dismissal. If Librium Liz can be said to mastermind anything. It was like asking a death row inmate to administer their own lethal injection.But it was a coup nonetheless. There may have been no military berets, but we might as well have had a TV announcer saying: “We interrupt this programme to inform you that the United Kingdom has a new junta. Continue reading...

The Georgia Republican candidate for the Senate claims he has ‘no idea’ what the money was used forConfronted on Sunday with receipts that appear to prove he paid for the abortion of a woman he once dated, staunch anti-abortionist Herschel Walker – Georgia’s Republican candidate for the US Senate – had a ready response: “It’s a lie.”Walker is competing for a Senate seat considered pivotal to determining which party controls the chamber in the 8 November midterms, but his campaign has spent weeks under fire after reports emerged earlier this month that Walker – who has publicly argued that abortion should be illegal nationwide without exceptions – sent the unnamed woman money to end her pregnancy. Continue reading...

The Tory party is already lining up its next leader, running through all its MPs in ever-decreasing qualityIf you’ve found the past few days in British politics tumultuous, spare a thought for the chair of the 1922 Committee, Sir Graham Brady, who reportedly returned to work on Monday after a half-term break in Athens to a pile of letters from rebellious Tory MPs trying to oust Liz Truss. We can only imagine his serenity as he contemplated the wonder of democracy at the Parthenon, before wandering into Westminster, putting down his carrier bag of duty free, and asking:“What did I miss?”Just a little, Graham! Over the past few days, Truss’s entire government agenda has been rewritten – and worse still, not even by her. Today’s emergency statement by the new chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, confirmed the kind of change in direction that typically causes whiplash: almost all of the remaining tax cuts from the mini-budget have been scrapped, with even Truss’s flagship plan to cap rising energy prices scaled back.Frances Ryan is a Guardian columnistDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...

It took the death of Sarah Everard to prompt the Casey report. As a former officer I was sickened by the findings – but sadly not surprised

Baton Rouge resident Patrick Ford discovers sunken Brookhill trading ship as lack of rainfall creates record-low water levelsRemains of a 19th-century ship were found in Louisiana’s capital as widespread drought creates record-low water levels in the Mississippi River.Baton Rouge resident Patrick Ford discovered the trading ship during one of his daily searches of the Mississippi riverfront for artefacts, the local news station WBRZ reported. Continue reading...

Senator says nonetheless Democrats should appeal to ‘millions of … working-class people’ who can’t afford healthcare or tuitionDemocrats should give up trying to appeal to racist, sexist or homophobic voters on the far right even as their party tries to preserve thin majorities in both congressional chambers, the progressive US senator Bernie Sanders said on Sunday.Sanders’ remarks came during an appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press after host Chuck Todd asked a question about attempting to woo over supporters of Donald Trump, which include white nationalists who helped stage the deadly January 6 Capitol attack on the day that Congress certified the former Republican president’s defeat to Joe Biden in the 2020 election. Continue reading...

Former Trump strategist found guilty of criminal contempt of Congress for ignoring subpoena from Capitol attack committeeSteve Bannon should be sentenced to six months in prison and a $200,000 fine for “his sustained, bad-faith contempt of Congress”, the justice department said in a legal filing on Monday.Bannon, the former Donald Trump White House strategist, was found guilty on two counts of criminal contempt of Congress in July for ignoring a subpoena from the US House committee investigating the January 6 attack. Continue reading...

Looming layoffs, rising inflation and fears of an impending recession bode ill for companies’ earnings calls next weekAmid an ongoing slowdown in the tech industry, with potential layoffs looming, investors are expecting another rough season of earnings reports from the sector.The next two weeks will see earnings calls from Meta, Twitter, Tesla, Google and others – and analysts are warning of more slowdowns, as economic headwinds including rising inflation and fears of recession continue. Continue reading...

Kari Lake, who has echoed Trump’s claims the 2020 election was stolen, refuses three times to answer when pressed on CNNThe Republican gubernatorial nominee in Arizona, Kari Lake, refused to say whether she would accept the results of the election if she loses in November.Lake, a former Phoenix-area news anchor, has made denying the 2020 election results that her preferred candidate Donald Trump lost a pillar of her campaign. She has said she wouldn’t have certified the 2020 vote that the former president lost – and which the Democratic victor Joe Biden won in Arizona by just over 10,000 votes, saying the election was “corrupt, rotten”. Continue reading...

Drones seen swooping low across skies of Ukraine’s capital as people seek cover. Plus, why pet shelters are overrun with guinea pigs

Dawn Wooten raised the alarm more than two years ago after detained immigrant women accused a gynaecologist of performing non-consensual proceduresWhen American nurse Dawn Wooten started asking questions about the alarming number of unwanted hysterectomies and gynaecological procedures being performed on detained immigrants at her workplace in Georgia, she was unfamiliar with the term whistleblower.Now, more than two years on, she has no regrets about having raised the alarm with her report on Irwin County Detention Center that shook the US and Congress with allegations against a gynaecologist so notorious he was known as the “uterus collector”. Continue reading...

The first rounds of the postseason saw three 100-win teams lose to opponents with worse records. Is this a sign of a flawed system or just how baseball works?Do you accept the results of the 2022 playoffs? This is not some obtuse political metaphor, it’s a conversation being had in some circles after three teams that won more than 100 games in the regular season fell to theoretically inferior squads in the first two rounds of the playoffs. It’s one heck of a debut for baseball’s brand-new postseason format that strikes many fans, particular of those eliminated teams, as essentially unfair.It started with the 101-win New York Mets, who didn’t even make the National League Division Series. Forced to play the San Diego Padres in a newly established three-game Wild Card series, the Mets managed to win just a single playoff game. The Atlanta Braves, despite earning a bye after just beating the Mets to the NL East title, didn’t fare much better. They managed to eke out the same number of postseason victories as the Mets, losing 3-1 in the NLDS to the Philadelphia Phillies, who finished 14 games below both teams in the NL East standings. Continue reading...

Kansas City and Buffalo both have an electrifying QB. But the balance of power on Sunday was shifted by a wily old veteranIn March, barely a month after he helped the Los Angeles Rams win the Super Bowl, a tough old linebacker named Von Miller surprised much of the football world by announcing that he was going to sign with the Buffalo Bills. Miller, a veteran of 10 NFL seasons, was about to turn 33, but the Bills were giving him a younger man’s contract: six years, $120m.“Is 40 open?” he said that day on Twitter, referring to his preferred jersey number. It was. Continue reading...

As the chess furore between Carlsen and Niemann rolls on, we take a look at some enduring disputes in sportNot since Netflix’s The Queen’s Gambit enthralled 62 million viewers has chess captured mainstream attention to such an extent.Last month the Norwegian grandmaster Magnus Carlsen, world No 1 and already the “rock star” of chess – see GQ profiles and multimillion‑pound apparel collaborations – accused the American Hans Niemann of cheating after the 19-year-old ended Carlsen’s over-the-board 53-match winning sequence. Continue reading...

I watch people preparing food, working out and doing laundry. But what if I don’t want to ‘maximise my potential’?You will not be surprised to hear that there’s another TikTok microtrend to feel bad about. It’s called #my5to9 (4.6m views) and it’s a two-headed beast, covering what people do in the 5am to 9am slot before work and their 5pm to 9pm post-work schedules. It’s a wholesome if exhausting-looking sequence of workouts, food prep and domestic drudgery. I watched one user cook, prep the next day’s breakfast and lunch, do laundry, plump pillows, bathe, exfoliate and moisturise. Then I needed a lie-down to recover.Given that sleep has already been hacked to death with everything from smart rings to ice baths, we are reaching a full 24-hour timetable of aspirational activity: there is no room for drooling or vacant downtime. It’s the logical conclusion of what essayist Jia Tolentino called the “always be optimising” mindset. Every second of time must be used well as we tick towards death. Why are you wasting yours reading this? At least listen to it on triple speed on the treadmill, loser. Continue reading...

Hispanic voters could tip the scales next month in a number of battleground statesArizona’s Democratic senator Mark Kelly frequently consults his “Latino kitchen cabinet”. In south Texas, the Democratic House candidate Michelle Vallejo hosted a neighbourhood quinceañera. And in Georgia, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams appeared on stage at La Raza’s Fiesta Mexicana. Across battleground states this midterm cycle, Democrats are urgently working to engage and mobilize Hispanic voters.Their push comes two years after Donald Trump made surprising but substantial inroads with Latinos despite his defeat to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential race. Democrats started to fear their party was losing its hold on a historically reliable cohort, while Republicans became hopeful. Continue reading...

Governor Greg Abbott wants to make the border safe for his state but loose gun laws allow cartels to drive to any Texas gun shop and legally stockpile guns, Mexican officials saySaying he wants to make the US-Mexico border as safe as possible for his state, Texas’s governor Greg Abbott last month signed an order designating Mexican drug cartels as “terrorist organizations” and urged the Joe Biden White House to do the same.But the same border that Abbott insists he wants to make safer is actually being destabilized by Texas’s lax gun laws, which the governor defends and which the Mexican cartels exploit to arm themselves – legally – to the teeth, according to officials left to grapple with the situation. Continue reading...

A selection of the fashion on show at the gala of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles Continue reading...

Will Wilkerson, co-founder of Trump’s media company, also alleges that ex-president pressured executives to give shares to MelaniaThe co-founder of Donald Trump’s beleaguered social media company has turned whistleblower, alleging the firm violated federal securities laws and that the former president pressured executives to hand over lucrative shares to his wife.Will Wilkerson, a former Trump Media and Technology Group executive, has told the US government’s financial watchdog that the company’s bid to raise more than $1bn via an investment vehicle known as a special purpose acquisition company (Spac), relied on “fraudulent misrepresentations … in violation of federal securities laws.” Continue reading...

January 6 committee member speaks days after panel voted to subpoena Trump and says ex-president ‘required by law to come in’Election deniers are not “going to go away organically”, and if they are ever to vanish, US voters must signal “that truth matters” beginning with the upcoming midterms, according to a Republican member of the congressional committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol.Adam Kinzinger’s latest remarks on the baseless insistence by Donald Trump’s allies that fraudsters denied him a second term in the Oval Office and handed the 2020 election to Joe Biden came Sunday, days after the House January 6 select committee unanimously moved to subpoena the former president’s testimony over his knowledge of the deadly Capitol attack. Continue reading...

US president rejects ‘cutting taxes on the super-wealthy’ and says he is not the only world leader critical of abandoned planJoe Biden has called Liz Truss’s abandoned economic plan that sent financial markets into chaos and caused a sharp drop in the value of the pound a “mistake” as criticism of her approach continued.The US president hinted that other world leaders felt the same way about her disastrous mini-budget, saying he “wasn’t the only one” who had concerns over the lack of “sound policy” in other countries. Continue reading...

Missouri woman, 22, escapes less than a month after police dismissed concerns about a serial killer as ‘completely unfounded’A 22-year-old Black woman in Missouri who escaped after a white man abducted, tortured and held her captive for weeks in a basement has said several other Black women were killed by her captor – less than a month after police dismissed community concerns about a serial killer as “completely unfounded”.The woman, who has not been named, escaped on 7 October after about a month in captivity, still wearing a metal collar locked with a padlock that authorities had to remove. Continue reading...

Former heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder broke into tears as he spoke about the dangers of boxing and its effects on fighters such as Puerto Rican boxer Prichard Colón, who was left in a vegetative state after a fight in 2015. "You don't understand what we go through, man." he said. Wilder was speaking after defeating Finnish opponent Robert Helenius with a trademark knockout blow in the first round.

Comments will be embarrassing for royal who has tried to distance himself from disgraced socialiteGhislaine Maxwell has spoken from a US prison cell about how she feels “so bad” for her “dear friend” Prince Andrew.In her first lengthy interview since her conviction on sex-trafficking charges last year, Maxwell said she still cared about the Duke of York, who has been stripped of royal duties over his relationship with the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Continue reading...

Republicans want midterm voters to believe lies about crime, inflation and taxes. This is what they’re claiming – followed by the factsRepublicans are telling three lies they hope will swing the midterms. They involve crime, inflation, and taxes. Here’s what Republicans are claiming, followed by the facts. Continue reading...

US employee rights agency issues growing number of complaints against coffee chain as hundreds of stores try to form unionsIn April 2022, Hannah Whitbeck, a barista at a Starbucks store in Ann Arbor, Michigan was fired just weeks after she helped file for a union election at her store, which many employees voted in favor of shortly after her termination.Whitbeck filed an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board, alleging her termination was in retaliation for union organising. On 7 October, a judge with the NLRB ruled she was illegally fired, ordering her reinstatement with back pay and the arrangement of a meeting to clarify workers’ rights and how Starbucks broke the law. Continue reading...

‘This has nothing to do with Trump,’ a parent says, as people pressure officials to censor books with LGBTQ+ themesA recent school board meeting at which about 1,000 people gathered in Dearborn, Michigan, to pressure district officials to censor books with LGBTQ+ themes was in most ways similar to hundreds of other recent book ban hearings across the US.Speakers alleged the books “promote mental health issues” and “self harm”, while the school district and liberals were seeking to “indoctrinate children”. Gay people, they said, were “creeps and pedohiles”, and gay lifestyles were equated with zoophilia. Continue reading...

The Republican ex-governor was known for his offensive, belligerent attitude – but this time, he says he’s reformedIn the late summer of 2016, Drew Gattine received a surprising voicemail. The sender was Paul LePage, then the governor of Maine, and he called Gattine “a little son-of-a-bitch socialist cocksucker”.Amid the inevitable media frenzy that followed, LePage lamented not having the opportunity to engage Gattine, a Democrat in the Maine house of representatives, in a duel. Rather than follow in the footsteps of Alexander Hamilton, who pointed his gun in the air when he dueled Aaron Burr in 1804, LePage told reporters, “I would point it right between his eyes, because he is a snot-nosed little runt.”. Continue reading...

Democrats and Republicans are largely talking past each other as they campaign, with little to no overlap on what they consider major issuesRon Johnson’s priorities were clear. “We have a huge problem with skyrocketing crime,” insisted the US senator for Wisconsin, accusing his debate opponent, Mandela Barnes, of pushing to reduce cash bail, release violent criminals and slash police funding.Minutes later it was Barnes’s turn to go on the offensive. Johnson, the lieutenant governor said, had described the end of the constitutional right to abortion as a “victory” and shown himself to be “callous” and “out of touch”. Barnes promised to codify that right into law if elected. Continue reading...

Ahead of the findings of a major inquiry, it’s clear we’re not even getting the basics rightThe more time you spend looking at government policy, the more you realise how much of its intervention is recklessly short term, ignores the evidence and attempts to fix the problem when it’s staring us in the face, rather than prevent it escalating. Many years of it has left me a pretty hardened cynic: it takes a lot to surprise me when it comes to things the state should be doing, but doesn’t.But I was left shocked after I recently attended a briefing from the Centre of Expertise on Child Sexual Abuse in my capacity as a trustee of the Indigo Trust (which gives it some funding). Slide after slide highlighted how we are failing children who are being subjected to sexual abuse at the most basic level and, if anything, these failures are getting worse. Continue reading...

As cases of war crimes pile up against Russia, can peddlers of hate be held to account?I was in gorgeous, courageous Kyiv on Monday when the latest Russian missile shower hit Ukraine, murdering civilians and knocking out heat and light on the cusp of winter. Kyivans took it calmly. My meeting smoothly transferred from a cafe to the metro, where we chain-drank coffee and carried on under the sirens and occasional, reverberating booms of missile defence. On social media and Russian TV, the grotesque propaganda cast of state-controlled media, officials and tub-thumping pundits were their usual sadistic selves, celebrating the strikes and calling for more attacks on civilians and critical infrastructure.For years, and especially since the invasion of 24 February, Russian state media has been calling to wipe Ukraine off the map, for killing Ukrainians en masse, and dehumanising its people, smearing them as “Nazis” who need to be “denazified”. Continue reading...

Diplomacy isn’t working and Putin doesn’t want peace. Western countries should close their embassies and send Russia’s envoys packingLike early morning river mist, hopes of peace in Ukraine rise momentarily, then dissipate with the first sigh of a contrary breeze. UN chief António Guterres mounts a mission to Moscow and Kyiv – then Vladimir Putin’s missiles blow it all to hell. Russia coyly offers talks at next month’s G20 summit. Then Joe Biden scoffs: they’re not serious, he’s heard it all before.Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, watches his cities burn anew and vows never to negotiate while Putin rules. Turkey, playing a double game, confuses mediation with collaboration at a secretive Kazakh tryst. Meanwhile, a world aghast at scary escalations and threats of nuclear war cries out in alarm: “When will it end? And how?” Continue reading...

In the run-up to World Menopause day, we in the UK need to remember it’s not just white, posh women who need helpWhat’s the difference between menopause and depression? asks Jo Brand with a cheeky wink on my Twitter feed. “Nothing according to some doctors …” She’s followed by a series of famous women offering such gags as: “Why are menopausal women so good at poker?… All those flushes!” This Menopause is Beyond a Joke campaign is promoting a rally in Parliament Square on Tuesday to celebrate World Menopause Day. And all power to their elbow.Ever since Davina McCall burst onto our screens with her documentary last year, the menopause has been out and proud. Brands are peddling menopause creams and potions, there are menopause clothes to help combat symptoms – The Bookseller even ran a special menopause edition. Continue reading...

Doug Mastriano, Jenna Ellis and Peter Navarro among those named in case related to attempt to overturn Pennsylvania resultFacing a Washington DC legal ethics prosecution over his role in Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election, the former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani has turned to a cast of characters from that failed effort.A witness list filed by lawyers for Giuliani on Friday included Doug Mastriano, the Republican candidate for governor in Pennsylvania; the former Trump campaign lawyer Jenna Ellis; and Christina Bobb, an attorney currently caught up in Trump’s fight with the US Department of Justice over the retention of classified records. Continue reading...

‘We are sure we stopped another killing,’ Stockton police chief saysA man suspected of killing six men and wounding a woman in a series of shootings in northern California was arrested before dawn on Saturday as he drove through the streets of Stockton, armed with a handgun and possibly searching for another victim, police said.Investigators began watching the suspect after receiving tips and stopped him in a car at about 2am in the Central Valley city where five of the shootings took place, the police chief, Stanley McFadden, said at a news conference. Continue reading...

Spokesperson confirms plan to continue with immigration stunts which have attracted investigations and lawsuitsThe Republican governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, plans to continue flying undocumented migrants to Democratic strongholds, his spokeswoman said on Saturday, a day after released records showed the state paid nearly $1m to arrange two sets of flights to Delaware and Illinois.Documents released on Friday showed that the planned flights will transport about 100 migrants. They were scheduled for before 3 October but were halted or postponed. The contractor hired by Florida extended the window for the trips until 1 December, according to memos released by the state transportation department. Continue reading...

These men and boys were dehumanised not only by Dahmer’s brutal actions but by retellings limited to descriptions of their deaths and bodiesThe true crime genre has a tendency to portray killers and victims in a way that only leads to further pain, and Netflix’s new series about the the serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer is no different. This approach is summarised by the show’s exclusion of a powerful statement from the uncle of one of Dahmer’s victims.On the last day of Dahmer’s trial in 1992, the families of the men and boys who lost their lives at his hands gave victim impact statements to the court. Continue reading...

US political insider admits there are ‘reasons to worry’ for its democracy as allies wonder at damage done to the west’s credibility